/lit/ - Literature

>>19214810
More so, there's also this chart, which is focused on Buddhism alone. It includes the books of the Theravada school, the Pali Canon Excerpts and the Dhammapada. But it does not include books from the Mahayana school, the Diamond and Lotus Sutra. However it claims to be a non-sectarian chart. Keep in mind I have read literally none of these books so I have no idea what I am talking about. However, if it has the books of one school and not another, then how is it non-sectarian? Regardless, I just finished reading the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, and now I feel I am ready to move onto Buddhism, what books should I read as a beginner?

dandaron is my spiritual leader eternally
t. latvian

>>19214810
I don't know if reading Buddhism can be spiritual for everyone. If you don't find it spiritual try reading the anapanasati sutta and then practicing it. I find it almost impossible to practice so maybe it is a real challenge.

>>19214810
Joy of Living by Mingyur Rinpoche

Uses science to back up Buddhisms claims.

>>19215212
>joy of living
but don't buddhists want to stop living?

>>19216016
To want anything is not very buddhist

>>19214810
Read the Dhammapada and the Diamond Sutra and then read whatever you feel like reading. The Mahayana vs Theravada nonsense is mostly an internet thing, real life buddhists don't argue about which sects are the best or whatever, there no clear fixed orthodoxy like in abrahamic religions

>>19215177
Well, I'm not necessarily looking for spiritual. I guess I am more so looking for insight, or for the truth

>>19214836
its non-sectarian since it relies on the oldest texts which are common to ALL sects, instead of focusing on texts which are specific to different sects.

the chart in the quoted post is a very good place to start - for mahayana specific texts there are a huge amount of different schools, but some to start with

prajnaparamita sutras - especially heart and lotus
nagarjuna for madhyamika
asanga and vasabandhu for yogacara, as well as the scripture on the explication of the underlying meaning
nirvana sutra is the most important for the tathagatagarbha sutras
platorm sutra for zen, as well as bodhidharma, linji, and dogen, as well as the gateless gate and blue cliff record collections
three pure land sutras + honen and shinran for pure land

there is much more in mahayana but you can figure that for yourself, and remember to get a grounding in the 'non-sectarian' chart first

>desiring is the root of all suffering

>and yet you desire enlightenment

curious

>>19214810
J e e t s

>>19216872
And this is better then my pic from OP and SP, how exactly? This is even more confusing

>>19216961
You just go down row by row, how could this be confusing?

>>19215212
>Uses science to back up Buddhisms claims.
This is silly when science supports materialism but Buddhism is mutually exclusive with materialism being true

>>19216980
Well I mean in SP it goes one by one. But I still do not know if that is the best order. I know it recommends me to go through the entire Pali canon one by one, but I wanted some advice from the people here who have actually taken the time to do it, to find out if this is the best way to seriously learn about Buddhism, or if there is some other better path

>>19215177
Mcmindfulness is a big issue. Its not buddhism. Buddhism is a package. A 3 part package.

Embracing morality, transforming your mind, and acting accordingly.

If you only read, it will only be useful for the moment you read. You then forget about it soon after. You need the mind to be transformed so you're always in the same state as when you realize while reading. When your mind has been transformed, then your actions naturally follow through with your new found wisdom.

>>19217013
>go through the entire Pali canon one by one,
You mean reading four or five of the nikayas cover to cover? Buddhists don't actually do this btw. But you could read a sutta a day and be done eventually.

>>19214810
>>19217013
take 1h to read that and you'll be up to date

>start
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN19.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/AN/AN6_63.html
>middle
https://suttacentral.net/mn148/en/sujato
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN12_51.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/AN/AN11_1.html
>finish
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN54_8.html

>>19214810
Buddhism is for Easterners. Take the Christian pill if you are Western.

>>19216154
Real life buddhists only care about rituals and chanting.

>>19217090
Yeah, like In The Words of the Buddha, then middle length discourses, then long discourses, then connected discourses, then numerical duscourses then dhammpada then sutta nipata

>>19214810
I don't know shit about buddism, but me and my bros once listened to an audiobook of siddhartha while we were super drunk and it was great.

>>19217136
It's like reading an encyclopedia. Mahayana sutras are more "literary" if that makes sense.

>>19217127
Well I am looking to learn about all the major religions. I just want to learn the truth.

>>19214810

This stems from the confusion of Buddhism w/ Hinduism, Mahayana, ZEN, Vajrayana which are a monistic Universalism: the totality exists &nothing else. There is no multiplicity, everything is absolutely identical. it's ''acosmatic''.
They mix this view with a huge amount of symbols, incantations, rituals, worship, idolatry, mantras, deities, chanting,entertainment with lengthy Scriptures with thousands of verses, sacrifice &sacred objects, &rules for lay people in order to create a religion.
For the Hindus & Mahayanists, people have the knowledge that they have a true nature, but people are misguided on what they take as their true nature. This is why the Hindus say that people are already enlightened, they just do not know about it... The true nature of people is not the 5 senses or their objects, but the mind itself with the world [loka] itself identified with the cosmos, or their deification of this, ie their Brahma or their Buddha or non-duality, & when people realize this they are enlightened. The way to realize this is by relying on lots of sacrifice, chantings &rituals, also on material objects which magically purify the minds for them, like sounds, logic, mantras, little beads, amulets.
Mahayana-Hinduism tries to make a human society, some political system too.

It is only when there is a allegedly good creator [a god or just ''nature''] that it makes sense to ask the usual question ''why the cosmos produce things which do not know that they are the cosmos?'' The Hindus keep replying with their main thesis, ie ''because people do not know their true nature, which is pure being &cannot be described'' &that's their answer...


in Buddhism, there is no non-duality, people do not have a true nature, people are not the cosmos, people are not Brahma, people do not come from Brahma, people are not nibanna, people do not come from nibanna, people are not Buddha, people do not come from a buddha, people are not their mind, people are not loka, people are not born already enlightened. there is only craving for pretty things &the pretty ideas of having ''a true nature'' &there is a lack of craving for pretty things &pretty ideas. People get enlightened when they stop craving for those. The way to get enlightened is to purify the mind, however not with useless incantations &rituals nor with magical objects, unlike the Hindus do, but with the mind itself, ie all the time inclining [with the mind] the mind towards what the buddha calls good qualities &then directly knowing the mind as it really is, which is anicca, dukkha, anatta [contrary to what the hindus say], which is the condition for dispassion, dispassion which is the condition for liberation, liberation which is the condition for direct knowledge that dukkha is ended.
Buddhism doesn’t care about society. Buddhism works in feudalism, republics, empires, monotheism, paganism, whatever non-enlightened people create as political system. Buddhism doesn't try to change society at all.

>>19217127
If only the Greeks had followed your chauvinist advice there would be no Christians

>>19217163
I don't know how but I am getting filtered by a chart. Then which books should I read ? I know it's annoying to be asked this, and I mean this unironically, but spoon-feed me specific titles with a specific order

>>19217180
Start with What the Buddha Taught, then read the Heart Sutra. This gives you Theravada (WtBT is by a Theravadan monk) and Mahayana (Heart Sutra is the core of the Mahayana).

Unless you're going to become a monk, it literally just comes down to aesthetics. The basics are the same.

>>19217174
Thank you for the great effort post. I will think a while about it.

>>19217180
Start with the first row. Second row is more nikayas and early Buddhism. Third goes into Mahayana>Madhyamaka. Next two are Yogacara. After that is Huayan.

>>19217127
>Take the Christian pill if you are Western
But I'm not going to follow a religion made by african desert people.

I'd rather follow a religion made by Scythians. My own flesh and blood. As a proud Nordik man, how would I ever relate myself to an African religion

>>19217204
Ah I will need to reflect on it. Too many possible options. Diamond sutra, lotus sutra, heart sutra, in the buddhas words, dhammpada, bodicharya, etc.
1 chart: >>19214810
2 chart: >>19214836
3 chart: >>19216872
4 chart: pic related

I believe I am suffering from what is called overchoice. Too many recommendations from too many sources. And honestly my brain's fried. It think it's just my compulsion to ensure that I am reading the right books. I might just end up defaulting to In The Buddha's Words, honestly seems like it cannot be a bad place to start, and I'll decide the rest later.

>>19217235
???

>>19217134
Real life buddhist only care of meditating and precepts, if chanting and ritual isnt the same as meditating in your eye, then you have no place to assert your opinion

>>19217174
>directly knowing the mind as it really is, which is anicca, dukkha, anatta [contrary to what the hindus say]
The Advaitins don’t say that the mind is the self or that the self is contained in the mind, but they agree that the mind is also anatta or ‘not self’ and that the Self is our innermost unchanging partless self-revealing awareness which is different from the mind, as the luminous presence which effortlessly reveals itself as well as all mental objects including thoughts and any other kind of mental function which is subject to change. Our experience and logic alike both attest to the continuing presence of an unaffected observing awareness with infallible and uninterrupted access to whatever the mind is doing.

>>19216652
Im gonna suffer for it and love it and suffer for my loving of it and love my suffering of it
WOULD YOU BLEED FOR IT
WOULD YOU CRY FOR IT
WOULD YOU AUDITION SHAMELESSLY
WOULD YOU PRACTICE HUMBLY AND SHAMEFULLY

>>19217251
(3) is strictly texts and traditional (not in the autistic sense) commentaries. The other charts have a mix of contemporary authors, which is a broader and more idiosyncratic sort of focus. Don't buy a dozen books because a chart tells you to. Start with one and read slowly.

>>19217363
That really depends on my origination, monk

To everyone in this thread, have any of these spiritual books even made any one of your lives subjectively better than if you hadn't read them?

>>19217351
>experience
>logic
>continuing presence of an unaffected observing awareness with uninterrupted access to whatever the mind is doing

>>19217407
I've read many buddhist books. As an analytical person, "What the Buddha Taught" was a great book for me. So was Dhammapada. Subjectively it made it better because I'm not able to appreciate the meanings of life more clearly and I'm able to identify phenomenas as they are which I had absolutely zero idea/conceptual awareness before reading those.

>>19217407
You're thinking of self help. This is not-self help.

>>19217408
Yes, awareness forever remains and all else is subject to change

>>19217389
I know. I'm just gonna start with one

>>19217407
Yes.

>>19217485
You've admitted previously that it cannot be proven and is merely an axiomatic point for your belief system. Since I don't believe your assertion and it cannot be shown there is nothing to discuss.

>>19217665
>You've admitted previously that it cannot be proven and is merely an axiomatic point for your belief system.
It can't be proven that it's forever, which is okay because Advaita says that the Absolute transcends logic and cannot be proved or arrived at via logic. It can however be proven through logic that awareness is unchanging, self-revealing, continuously present and that it enjoys the privilege of infallible access to whatever the mind is presently engaged in, like how the sun continuously illumines the changing planet earth.

>>19217235
I simply embraced the cryptic experience of erudition itself as a religious experience not needing to be hyped because the true mystic is mystified without error.
Himmler almost accomplished this in his Tibetan expedition via Ernst Schafer. Simply know thyself my icy brother. Know our people's true history. Uncovering this in our age is itself a prophetic act and journey. Evola is the librarian, Alfred Rosenberg is the preacher, William Luther Pierce is the Evangelist.

I woke up at 4 AM to read about iron magnetic meterorites that landed near Mount Meru (Khailash) and the Himalayas that turned into curious statues. Through this lens when you immerse yourself in ancient texts like the Indian Vedas, Old Norse Sagas, Olympian Epics, you will instinctively see the connections and see yourself as one reverent of the relived experience in an unbroken line and alone surrounded by broken lineages with full covetous investment hostile to the most remote hint of this consciousness. The enemy always telegraphs his lies and reveals the truth in patient rhyme.

>>19217853
Mystified by the absence of error, more aptly said when error not only abounds but is the pulpit of all accepted Mystics sold by the antimystic McWorld. Buddha claims to have lived many lives. Christ claims dominion in the afterlife. Many believe them and these unprovable claims but will deny the proven claims I represent. Knocking down the idols but keeping false idols around as indicators is the way to follow the rhyme of reason.

>>19217876
Buddha is a meta idol that knocks himself down as a necessary idol because he without a bloody holy war series and sectarian strife says that lay people need not strive to be Bodisatvas. In borne maturity to how impressionable people are is his message privy to those willing to live in a world of astronomical precision, visible Devas, and deep timelines versus a world of comforts and simple pains.

>>19217898
Rolling for deva digits

The Pure Land school is good too OP. It's one of the main pillars of Buddhism in East Asia.

>>19217853>>19217127

>>I simply embraced the cryptic experience of erudition itself as a religious experience not needing to be hyped because the true mystic is mystified without error.
mysticism is for retards who don't understand the jhanas. There is nothing mystic about buddhism.

>>19217801
>Advaita
Advaita was destroyed by the buddha many times.

>>19216142
I feel like a lot of modern psychology mindfulness stuff about accepting emotions kinda runs in current with this.

>>19214810
Christ is King. Give up eastern mysticism

>>19219167
lol
Go back to your larp containment thread

pillars of ashoka, everything else is nonsense in my opinion, gotamas teachings are really simple, the teachings of the monks are not.

>>19219118
>Advaita was destroyed by the buddha many times.
Lol, no he didn’t. Buddha doesn’t provide a single argument in the Pali Canon that refutes Advaita

>>19217251
I notice that most of the books in these guides seem to be dealing with specific sects of Buddhism. Perhaps it would be better to start with a more academic work which gives an overview of how they all connect historically, or something like that? Otherwise you're going to be reading books which may appear to have wildy different vocabularies, even if the underlying ideas may be quite similar. There are a lot of biases out there amongst different groups and I think it's valuable to be aware of them before you jump into their literature. If you then pick a branch to focus on for a while, it should serve as a good basis to illuminate the others.

>>19221819
So.. I can start with In The Buddha's Words ?

>>19221819
>Otherwise you're going to be reading books which may appear to have wildy different vocabularies, even if the underlying ideas may be quite similar.
Vocabulary is pretty consistent. The problem is translations. You'll have to learn to recognize a few dozen sanskrit or pali terms used in Buddhism and the four or five variations of them used in English. There are additional concepts introduced and emphasized in Mahayana that aren't in the nikayas, although the nikayas are common to both Theravada and Mahayana. Any survey text is going to be deficient in some way because there is too much to cover adequately and even handedly. Has anyone ever written a widely acclaimed survey of Christianity, for instance, or is that always colored by the author's perspective on who got it right against the formal or noumenal Christianity he is describing on the basis of its extant and defunct variants. It's same idea with Buddhism. That's why I personally favor starting with the immediate texts, the suttas or sutras, because these are the same words that audiences have read for a thousand plus years. There are however, two useful studies of Buddhism I've read, which are Ch'en's Buddhism in China and Gombrich's Theravada Buddhism, which could just as well be called Buddhism in Sri Lanka. There is no truly generic Buddhism to study except one you invent to avoid sectarians.

>>19221901
It's foundational and it's going to help you understand a lot of references you'll run into in other texts. So you could start at the beginning with the Pali canon and follow the development of the ideas through that way too. Bhikkhu Bodhi's translations seem to be well regarded.

>>19221986
Yes, I can see your point. I suppose this is why I struggle to actually recommend a specific history book to use an introduction. As things become more sectarian, I think there begins to be more need for some kind of scholarly commentary to even know where to begin looking at primary texts but perhaps more detailed histories by region are the better alternative, yes.

>>19222104
>need for some kind of scholarly commentary to even know where to begin looking at primary texts
Well this is where Buddhism stops and indology or buddhology starts as an academic or scholarly exercise. Ordinary Buddhist laypeople in Asia do not read thirty books on this subject and attempt to discern a meaning from them or engage in scholastic/doxographical analysis of them. They might have a collection of a few sutras like the Lotus or Vimalakirti and some statues. So the problem is essentially: how does a westerner with no cultural background in Buddhism acquire what is effectively a monastic curriculum. And the answer is that people have had to fetch these texts manually from abroad (like the Chinese and Japanese pilgrims of the Asia's middle ages) and translate them not merely on the basis of linguistic knowledge but also on what they mean. Conze for instance, long dead but even today is considered a western expert on the prajñaparamita texts, admits in his translation that there are passages he does not understand and is just mechanically rendering. Another translator, Brunnholzl, is ordained (Tibetan Kagyu iirc), but to read his translations in their fullness involves filipping to the endnotes every two sentences to see further color on what is being said. So I think it is highly unlikely that one can acquire a lay mastery of the material or that one can hope to approach that without years of reading and re-reading as a lifelong passion. Doesn't mean you can't get something out of it, but an end to end understanding of all the different texts and how they relate is a really monastic thing, or barring that, a pseudo-monastic thing (e.g. as for the extreme autodidact or western academic)

>>19222217
RIP I just wanted to learn about Buddhism. I dont want to read 30 books. I just read the Upanishads and Sneeda, and I found them to be very insightful and interesting. Now I want to see if Buddhism can also offer interesting insights. Honestly I'm serious when I say it's time to reduce these charts, because the way they are now, barely any bodies actually going to read through all of that. Regardless, I did get Bikkhu Boddhi translation In The Buddhas Words, so I'm reading that first.

>>19222608
Well you don't have to read thirty books. There is an otaku mentality that goes into all of these charts and making them as comprehensive as possible. It would be nice to see micro charts on /lit/.

>>19214969
idk who that is but he has a cool hat

>>19222608
Just read the Dhammapada translated by Easwaran.

>>19222987
Has a good (and long) introduction as well